I apologize for the extreme lateness of this post. Working two retail jobs with the holiday rush is really draining this year for some reason. Thank goodness this will all be over in a week or so. OTL

Once again, this show proved my assumptions wrong. I guess the other girls didn’t have Cordelia’s heart in them after all and Yui’s other awakening was about her turning into a vampire. …This still doesn’t explain why Richter told Yui that she was just some insignificant girl who happened to be there by chance, since she’s apparently the only one who’s ever had the heart. Nor did this even explain why she had the heart in the first place. Or how long she’s had it. Or what the vial that Kanato pulled out was about. Obviously those who have played the game knew what all of that meant, but for anyone else, it was probably very confusing.

That was a horrible ending. Well, this was a thing that happened. No, really, that ending was pretty bad. Not only was it probably confusing to those unfamiliar with the game, but it was pretty anticlimactic and rushed. Reiji’s magical medicine that came out of nowhere got rid of the main villain with little to no effort. Laito just kind of left Richter to die in a fire without even bothering to make sure that he actually died too. …I assume that Richter did die, considering how injured he was, but after Cordelia, you’d think that they would bother to double check or something. Also, I realize that it was some kind of magical fire going on, but wouldn’t leaving it unattended possibly burn down the rest of the house? What was that white rose even about? Oh well. I guess the important thing here is that the brothers are all (probably) nicer to Yui now. I mean, Ayato gave her back her rosary. That (probably) means something. …Of course, this new attitude came rather fast and had little to no in-between development at all, but I guess it’s the end result that matters. I’d also think that it’s safe to say that Yui’s a vampire, since they kept talking about an awakening and she mentioned how she was thirsty when she woke up. I imagine that they left this ambiguous so they could maybe change her back to being human if hell freezes over and this somehow gets another season. Since apparently the sequel game, Yui is still human.

Maybe her new (probable) vampireism why they’re (probably) treating her kinder? Or maybe because she stabbed herself for them? In any case, the ending monologues by the brothers was probably an attempt at recreating the DHM recordings that were in the game. …And failing miserably, since they weren’t actually DHM recordings. (DHM standing for “dummy head microphone”. …Basically, it creates a high quality recording and makes it sound like the voices are right beside you/wherever. It’s pretty awesome.) They probably could have ended in something more worthwhile conclusive than the 6 characters talking, but it’s over and done with now. I’m not going to dwell on this.

So this show had a lot of questionable content, but it was really unavoidable. After the first episode, the content should have been pretty clear, so I don’t know why people were expecting anything different. It’s kind of like watching a Gundam series and then complaining that there are robots in it. Or in a slightly less kid-friendly comparison that’s probably more on par with themes in DiaLovers, complaining that there’s an NTR porn scene in an NTR-based hentai. Maybe the figurative anime here would have been better without the robots or NTR, but then you’re complaining about what’s supposed to be the main selling point of the series. …Abuse is not everyone’s cup of tea and I don’t think anyone expects it to be, but if you don’t like it in anime, you certainly don’t have to watch it. Just like if you don’t like NTR, you would avoid those hentai. The Diabolik Lovers franchise completely based on abusive relationships/guro/whatever (…though milage may vary as to how appealing this is). Take that away from the series and you’re ignoring the reason why the games exist in the first place.

…Or maybe that last sentence should have been “take that completely away from the series” since the anime seriously lightened/ignored a LOT of the content that made DiaLovers a Cero D (17+) game. The guys all still treated Yui horribly (because where would this series be without that), but they could have been WAYYY worse. Cordelia could have been a lot worse. Though taking away some of that content doesn’t seem like the best thing the series could have done, since the anime wasn’t as good without it. There wasn’t much of a plot in the first place, but the episodes were almost the exact same formula, only substituting a different brother. This anime didn’t really have much else to it, so with the content lightened, this anime just felt really… empty. Maybe this could have all been solved if they had hired more competent writers. It probably could have worked if the plot didn’t keep contradicting itself every other episode.

Though all of that begin said, I actually enjoyed this train wreck more than any other otome game adaptation this year (with the exception of UtaPri, which was great despite the unnecessary BL intonations). The topic of the show didn’t appeal to everyone, and the writing was pretty bad, but the fact that Yui actually had a name and personality made all of the difference. Her decisions had more impact to them, since we actually knew enough about her as a character for them to matter. …Not that we really knew a lot about her character, but it’s still more compared to the heroines from Brothers Conflict or Amnesia. And while she made some pretty bad decisions when it came to living with the brothers, the fact that she actually had a personality made up for a lot of that. …So overall, this was a pretty bad anime plot-wise (and theme-wise), but it had some nice looking animation and it was slightly more enjoyable than a lot of the other otome game based anime that came out this year.

The next season doesn’t seem to have any otoge turned anime, but after the train wrecks this year, perhaps it’s for the better.

33 Responses to “Diabolik Lovers – 12 [END]”

Working two retail jobs with the holiday rush is really draining this year for some reason.

At least you’ll be getting some extra money for the season. No pain, no gain!!

That’s one vampire show down. Well, I will say it was an interesting series but it felt so short with the 15 minute run and there was trouble shaking the feeling things were being left out. I read the manga anthology so I knew what I was getting into but I don’t get why people are so put off by the series. Yeah, it has questionable stuff but it’s not excessive.

I had a suspicions Yui would stay in spite of what’s happened. What I think is once someone spends so much time in a place, whether it’s willingly or not, they get attached to the surroundings and have trouble with the idea of leaving.

That “I’m so thirsty” remark pretty much confirms she’s become a vampire since a vampire’s heart would still have traces of vampiric blood that could have turned her but I wish they could have at least shown her with fangs. Out of brothers, my guess is she’ll choose Ayato later on. His name was being mentioned by her more than the others.

Yui as a protagonist was a breath of fresh air compared to the girl from Amnesia for her personality, one that didn’t need the influence of someone else. Her seiyuu Rie Suegara did well voicing her. I can see her getting more roles in the future if she keeps this up.

Really, I don’t need two jobs. One is just helping a friend out for the holiday season. …Though I’m kind of regretting it now.

Yeah, there was so much left out, it’s kind of painful. Not that the game is the greatest thing ever, but it’s certainly better than the anime was. I think I made it out to be a lot worse than it actually was in that first post. A lot of stuff I warned about never even happened.

I couldn’t see an ending with her running away either. Mostly because she never does in the game. I’m kind of upset (not really though) that they didn’t animate the ending with her killing all of the brothers. I think that would have been fun to see. Maybe that’s just me though.

Well, I think somewhere in the line of the brothers drinking her blood, she turned into one. I was never really clear what turned her into one in the games. Ayato is kind of the OTP (only not really) I guess. He’s usually in the centre of any official art that this series has. If that’s anything to go by.

It does have a 2nd game. But I wouldn’t call it a sequel. It’s more like a “fan made game”? In the sense that the game doesn’t continue the 1st game. It’s just like a fanfiction in the middle of the 1st game. I just finished with Kanato’s route and it was so “WTH!?”. What was nice about Kanato in the 1st game, is that he threw tantrums, just to be noticed and crying to Yui because he’s so lonely. In the 2nd game he just throws tantrums about anything, it’s not even funny, or cute, and he acts time an asshole all the time! Why did they have to do this to his route? It was just awful. it’s like it wasn’t Kanato, because it’s just ridiculous. (for example, there is a moments when Kanato got angry on Yui because she came home wet and got the hallway dirty. WHAT?) Kanato doesn’t even bother about things like this. It’s like his personality got mixed with Reiji’s.

I don’t want to spoil much, if you’re actually interested in the game. But really, Kanato’s route was so good and interesting in the first game but turned into “I’ve never seen anything worse” in the 2nd.
Gladly I picked Shu’s route next, and it’s not that Bad,(yet), well, I really hope Kanato’s route was the only bad one. But I’ve heard a lot from people that the whole game sucks.

Oh, yeah, and the game DOES introduce 4 new characters, which are the Mukami brothers.

I’m not sure, since I haven’t started their route’s yet.
But as I understood. It seems that they want to take Yui with them, if she agrees.
Sorry, I dont know that much. I have a lot of thought’s but I’m still not sure if all of them are true.
Oh, but this might be interesting. Show ▼

It seems that Yuma, one of the brothers, is actually Edgar. And in Shu’s route there’s a LOT of past scenes. About how he met him and how they’ve spent time.

I eonder, if they’ll make an anime for the second game, too. If they didn’t change up the “plot” and didn’t take away all of the abuse, I would have been all over it

But really, it’s such a shame they took away the gory stuff. As you said, the show seemed quite empty and pointless. I haven’t played the game, but I could practically see how some angst and gore would change the whole thing. TT^TT
Now I sound like a sadist, don’t I *^*
I still somewhat enjoyed this show. Enough that I didn’t drop it, as you can see. At least the art was pretty, and music was respectable too, otherwise this show would be the completest shit

That’s my main reason for watching right there (Knowing there would be vampires came up in second place). I wanted to know how a show/game like this could have such a considerable fan base despite its material (If there were some real masochists around). Compared to BTOOOM!, I don’t think Diabolik Lovers was that bad.

They probably could, but I don’t know how well this will sell, all things considered. Plus the last game was apparently REALLY bad.

Ahahaha it really would have been better with darker content. That was the whole point of the game. OTL I don’t think I would have dropped this either to be honest (regardless if I was blogging this or not). It was terrible, but it was still watchable.

Yup. The same thing happened with Brothers Conflict and Amnesia. In my case, at least. I watched both of those to the end, and no matter how much I cringed and thought how ridiculous they were, I still couldn’t drop any of them I

Actually, as I have posted elsewhere about this show, this one really makes me quail, and the fact that people actually enjoy watching it, and are not entirely repulsed by the actions on the show actually gives me pause. I have had to work hard to not factor that into my judgment of those people. To separate it out completely, as it were. I realize that the people who watch this don’t advocate for the actualization of the themes in the show, but even the admiration of the presentation of them without complete condemnation is very difficult for me.

When the music started playing after “I’m feeling so thirsty”, I went WHUUTTTT. I watched this for the seiyuu cast but even then I cringed many times throughout the series and thought to myself, all of this actually got animated? Who could forget all the blood sucking sounds? I mean, remember all that hoopla on the bill and strict censorship and what not? Damn, someone should animate a good yaoi already so that I don’t have to watch this stuff.

Some day I’m going to play it and oh I know what you are talking about. I’ve heard some drama CDs or you know those hunky dreamboy type of CDs they are releasing with famous seiyuu doing amazing things with DHM. I swear by their awesomeness. xD